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The Travis County Attorney's Office said compliance with the Texas Open Meetings Act (TOMA) is "crucial to ensuring a government that is accountable and responsive to its citizens."

A two-year investigation found probable cause that seven current or former Austin City Council members committed “multiple violations” of Texas Open Meetings Act by privately discussing public business, the Travis County Attorney announced this week.

In exchange for deferred prosecution, the members agreed to take training courses on the open meetings act and public-records preservation, and adhere to state and local transparency-in-government rules.

Travis County Attorney David Escamilla said his office, which prosecutes misdemeanors, would pursue charges if the members did not fulfill the agreement’s terms. Meetings-act violations are punishable by a fine up to $500 and jail time up to 180 days.

“It is important that a clear signal be sent that TOMA compliance is expected and mandatory,” Escamilla said in a written statement. “The Texas Open Meetings Act is not window dressing for governmental transparency. It’s the law.”

The announcement comes nearly a month after a federal court upheld the open meetings act, as my colleague Brooks Egerton blogged. City council members from across the state and the Texas Municipal League tried to overturn it, arguing that the act violated their free-speech rights.

AUSTIN — Although he’s been dead for more than a year, the mastermind behind the worst terrorist attack on United States soil was invoked in a Travis County courtroom.

State District Court Judge Scott Jenkins ruled last week that the state Department of Public Safety can keep secret the travel voucher and receipt records of Gov. Rick Perry’s security staff.

Jenkins said someone with a “devious mind” could find patterns in the security detail’s actions, endangering the governor’s safety, the Austin American-Statesman reported.

“It’s a sad day when every requestor is being treated like Osama bin Laden,” attorney William Christian told the judge.

Christian, whose clients are Cox Media Group, owner of the Statesman; and Hearst Corp. which owns the Houston Chronicle and the San Antonio Express-News, said dropping bin Laden’s name illustrates the bigger picture as citizens and the media try to hold the government to account. He said the newspapers sued to determine what taxpayers pay for when the bodyguards of the governor and his wife, Anita, are on the road.Continue reading →

To recap: Agents served subpoenas on Parkland, seeking records related to Price friend Willis Johnson and at least one of his businesses, Wai-Wize. The hospital’s subpoena also involved its former senior vice president and chief information officer, Jack Kowitt. Johnson declined comment, and Kowitt said Parkland’s lawyers told him he wasn’t linked to an allegation.

Then lower in the story, I mentioned that Parkland had asked the Texas Attorney General to block my Public Information Act requests for records about Wai-Wize’s hospital work and Kowitt’s personnel records. Parkland wouldn’t tell me why it was doing this.

I got an explanation late today. The U.S. Justice Department wrote the AG a letter, at Parkland’s request, saying my requests “directly relate” to its “active, on-going, investigation.” That investigation broadly involves “allegations of public corruption, tax evasion, and money laundering,” the letter says, and releasing information “will interfere with and/or prejudice” it.

I posted the letter in its entirety on the continuation. Email me if you have a tip.

Yesterday, Parkland’s chief medical officer sent out a memo discouraging employees from publicly discussing the sweeping U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services inspection of patient care at the Dallas County Hospital.

“While talking with colleagues about surveyed activities and the pursuit of improvement is appropriate, discussing the survey in public areas while the survey is ongoing is not,” wrote Dr. John Jay Shannon on the inspection’s third day.

It’s not clear what prompted the memo, but the directive comes a few weeks after administrators crafted a plan to steer inspectors away from known problems and warn employees to limit their comments about hospital issues in conversations with regulators.

Parkland is the county’s only taxpayer-funded hospital and serves some of our community’s most vulnerable patients — the poor, elderly and critically injured. That makes the qualilty of Parkland’s health care among the most important stories we cover, as our recent articles about patient deaths at Parkland and subsequent inspection show.

We’d like to encourage everyone with knowledge of the inspection to share information about its progress — good or bad. You can contact us using this form. We’d appreciate knowing who you are, but you have the option to provide documents and other information anonymously.

The governor’s office on Friday released to the Austin American-Statesman a copy of the contract that paid $4.5 million to David G. Nance’s Convergen Lifesciences.

The burst of sunshine came two days after The Dallas Morning News used two of its blogs to post the same contract — which it received in August from Gov. Rick Perry’s office in response to a Public Information Act request.

The News reported last month that the contract was awarded despite Convergen’s failure to win the recommendation of a regional screening panel.

In a letter to the Statesman, the governor’s office said a third party — which a Perry spokesman confirmed is Convergen — on Friday “withdrew its objection to release” of the contract.

The governor’s office of general counsel had told the Statesman on Nov. 1 that the contract was exempt from disclosure under state law.

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Gov. Rick Perry’s office appears to have changed its position on public disclosure of the contracts it signs with recipients of awards from the state’s Emerging Technology Fund.

In declining a recent request from the Austin American Statesman, attorneys for the governor argued that disclosure of a contract that paid $4.5 million to Convergen Lifesciences, a biotech company run by David Nance, a longtime Perry friend and political donor, would be an improper release of proprietary information. The governor’s office shipped the public information request to Attorney General Greg Abbott for a ruling, the Statesman reported.